


ah, ah, got a little paycheck (you've got big plans, you've gotta move)

by youareiron_andyouarestrong



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, jyn is the personifcation of the 'FIGHT ME' emoji, mess with bodhi and the rogue one crew will mess you up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-18 21:26:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9403568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youareiron_andyouarestrong/pseuds/youareiron_andyouarestrong
Summary: for someone whose head barely reaches the top of his shoulder, Jyn Erso gets into a lot of fights.Cassian knows, intellectually, that no one trained and raised by Saw Gerrera was ever taught the wholeask your questionsandthenshootstrategy. more like,shoot everything in sight and never bother about the damn questions, because this is a rebellion dammit.





	1. you've been on my mind girl, like a drug

_oh, Ophelia, you’ve been on my mind girl since the flood  
oh, Ophelia, heaven help a fool who falls in love_

* * *

 for someone whose head barely reaches the top of his shoulder, Jyn Erso gets into a lot of fights.

Cassian knows, intellectually, that no one trained and raised by Saw Gerrera was ever taught the whole _ask your questions and_ then _shoot_ strategy. more like, _shoot everything in sight and never bother about the damn questions, because this is a rebellion dammit._

and being now dubbed “the heroes of Scarif” haven’t taken the edge off any either. that hasn’t stopped anyone for muttering _“traitor”_ or  _“Imperial scum”_ or even  _“traitor’s daughter,” “loose cannon”_ whenever she does something unorthodox, which to be fair, Jyn basically makes a _living_ doing unorthodox things. 

usually, it’s not insults to _her_ that make her react with violence. Jyn usually fixes the offender with a flat, icy-eyed stare that never fails to bring goosebumps on Cassian’s arms, and he’s seen sentient beings twice her size become visibly uncomfortable or unnerved by her gaze. no, it’s never remarks against  _herself_ Jyn takes issue with, it’s the insults to other people. 

specifically, in this instance, Bodhi. 

Jyn seems to feel some sort of responsibility for him, since Saw Gerrera’s Bor Gullet messed with his mind and left him not quite– _stable_. it’s true that Bodhi occasionally has trouble carrying on a conversation and sometimes it’s small, seemingly insignificant things that make him freeze in place or stammer uncontrollably. he has screaming nightmares sometimes and Cassian knows for a fact Jyn’s often sat with him those nights, holding his hand or just quietly talking, keeping his mind off it. he knows this because he’s done it before himself. 

it’s also true that not everyone has the same level of patience for Bodhi as they do, even if the Rogue Squadron of pilots seems to have basically adopted him and are busy training him to be a proper fighter pilot. it’s also true that Bodhi doesn’t have quite the same vicious, feral “FIGHT ME” quality that Jyn does. he bows his head and takes whatever insults or criticisms come his way. 

Jyn does nothing of the kind. 

some sergeant Cassian doesn’t know is chewing out Bodhi for whatever reason or another–he wasn’t fast enough/quick enough/whatever and Bodhi is standing perfectly still, as if any movement will call even more attention and chastisement on him, the only thing moving about him is his eyes, darting back and forth. Cassian is already on his way over, ready to straighten this out, when Jyn comes up out of nowhere like the wrath of a righteous god and says in her precise, crisp voice, “leave him alone.” 

the sergeant snaps at her, “stay out of this _Imperial_ ,” and Jyn’s mouth becomes a long, thin line, a look Cassian recognizes as providing no good will towards the sergeant. 

she takes Bodhi by the arm, presumably to lead him away, when the sergeant says sourly, “Imperials have to stick together, don’t you?”

Jyn turns around, slow, slow, slow, her stance like a predator. Cassian walks over faster. 

the sergeant (stupid man) goes on to say something else, something that starts with “ _traitor”_ and will probably end in “ _you don’t belong here”_ or something equally unimaginative, when Jyn straightens up to her full height of five feet three inches, and then promptly proceeds to _tackle_ the unfortunate sergeant to the floor, and starts _whaling_ on him. Bodhi yells at the top of his lungs, _“Cassian!”_ even as he sprints over. rebels converge around them in a circle, shouting incoherently. Cassian forces his way through the crowd, giving no thought to how roughly he does it. when he reaches the writhing tangle that is Jyn and the sergeant who she’s making mincemeat out of, he manages to grab her around the waist and lift her physically in the air, off of him. her teeth are bared and her knuckles bloody and she looks nothing so much like some ancient goddess of wrath. 

the sergeant staggers upright, battered and bloody, protesting and demanding recriminations, when Cassian snaps at him, “you’re dismissed,” in his lowest, coldest voice of command. the whole ring of rebels around them freeze at the sound of it; the only time Cassian Andor speaks like that is when he’s about to go _spare._ he glares at all of them, his eyes black ice. “ _now,”_ he orders and they all scatter.

“Bodhi,” he starts and the pilot nods hastily. “I’ll just–go,” he says and darts away. 

Cassian, arms still locked around Jyn’s waist, looks down at her warily. she’s not fighting him anymore, which is good, but that silence and stillness are usually a pretty good indicator Jyn is _plotting_ something. “come on,” he tells and hauls her out of the landing bay, into a small deserted hallway. “I need you to stay calm, alright?” he tells her and she glares at him.

“no, I’m going to stay angry,” she snaps. “I find that relaxes me.”

“Jyn,” he starts, purely frustrated and she growls out, “ _what?”_ he looks down at her, meeting her glare for glare. 

“you cannot start fights every person who looks at you, or anyone you know, wrong,” he says and sees something like shame flashing over her face before vanishing into defensiveness. 

“he was chewing out _Bodhi,”_ she says and he sighs. 

“I know,” he says, “and I’ll talk to the sergeant about that. but you _cannot_ start picking fights with people. they _will_ ship you out to the Outer Rim if you keep it up.”

“I’ve been on the Outer Rim before,” she snaps, “I managed just fine there.”

“ _I_ won’t,” Cassian says and Jyn freezes in place, those impossible eyes of hers so wide he can see the flecks of gray deep down in them.

it takes a minute for him to parse through what he just said, the implications of it and it feels like a load of durasteel has suddenly taken the place of his stomach.

because he’d  _meant_ it.

Jyn is eyeing him, wary, and he has to resist the urge to clear his throat or shift uncomfortably back and forth. she takes a deep breath and then another and says, not quite as casually as she should, “well. since you won’t _manage_  without me.”

“probably,” he says, because logic tells him he would, but his heart (traitorous, stupid organ) protests it furiously. 

she doesn’t pick any more fights–at least, not in his hearing and Cassian wearily concedes that that’s the best he can hope for. 

the fights he gets into on _her_ behalf don’t enter into it.    


	2. honey i love you, that's all she wrote

After Scarif, after they all come back as heroes (or _the biggest fools in the entire galax_ y, as Draven is wont to say sarcastically), Jyn–much to everyone’s surprise, enlists in the Rebellion, officially, under the sponsorship of Captain Cassian Andor and his vouching for her. The Council isn’t so foolish as to let a highly skilled and intelligent asset go, so they accept her enlistment and promote her to sergeant (she could’ve been made a captain like Cassian but she flatly refused to accept it. Cassian isn’t sure if he’s relieved or exasperated, you don’t _pass up promotions_ ). But it was done and she wasn’t changing it.

She was still part of his team. A backhanded gift, this chance at living.

The two of them stick close to each other, of course, the whole Rogue One team does. You don’t escape death without forming bonds as tight as cable between you. This doesn’t stop people make assumptions. They _stare_. They mutter in undertones whenever he and Jyn pass by in a variety of tongues. Jyn doesn’t notice _,_ or at least she gives an excellent impression of not caring. She walks with her head held high now and her shoulder back, her whole posture something like a dare.

Some of the bolder pilots or agents will talk to her, cautiously. She responds to them with cool wariness. Some of them are even friendly, even… _interested._ Cassian has made his life by being good at reading people; he notices how eyes might flick up and down Jyn’s form, speculative and thoughtful. There’s not much to _do_ in a Rebellion whenever you get downtime, and there’s only so many times you can go over data. Which is why the Council insists on implants preventing pregnancy for all their female members, regardless of species. And it _is_ taken advantage of–copiously. He just–didn’t think _Jyn_ would ever–

It’s not his business. It’s _not._ She’s a part of his team, his comrade, she’s the knife he draws when his blaster is knocked away, and it isn’t any of his _kriffing_ business if she chooses to get involved with someone. It’s _not_.

Admittedly, this doesn’t stop him from slamming the first idiot lieutenant who asks him if she’s a good lay against the wall.

“I mean, if you _like_ them like that,” the lieutenant had said thoughtfully, oblivious to Bodhi’s frozen, horrified look in Cassian’s direction, how Chirrut’s staff starts to extend and Baze’s hand creeping towards his gun. “Tiny, vicious, _feral._ She’d be a hell of a lay if you don’t mind getting _bit_ –hey, what–”

Cassian doesn’t remember moving. Or at least, he doesn’t remember the conscious decision of it. One second the lieutenant was talking and the next, Cassian’s face was inches from his, one hand clenched in the material of his shirt, pulling until he could feel the seams start to give. He feels like an untapped mine, ready to blow if someone puts enough pressure on a weak spot. And Jyn–she is a weak spot.

He doesn’t _care._

“Listen to me _pendejo,”_ he hisses into the other man’s face, close enough to bite. “Jyn Erso didn’t risk her life for you to ask idiot questions like that, in my hearing or anyone else’s. And if I hear of you bothering her, you’ll never be heard from again. Understand?”

“I didn’t know she was _spoken_ for,” the lieutenant protests and it takes all of Cassian’s self-control not to gut the man where he stands.

“Never. Again,” he repeats, in a voice of black ice. “Get out of my sight.”

“That might’ve been unwise,” Chirrut remarks when the lieutenant flees. “Understandable, but unwise.”

Baze grunts in agreement. “Little sister can take care of herself.”

“I _know_ that,” Cassian snaps and _all_ the members of his team look doubtfully at him, the traitors. “She shouldn’t have to put up with it,” he adds, fighting off the uncomfortable conviction he’s digging himself deeper. “And _none_ of you are going to mention it to her, clear?”

Bodhi, Chirrut and Baze all look (or approximately in Chirrut’s case) at each other and shrug. “Whatever you say, captain,” says Bodhi and Cassian just _knows_ it’s going to be all over the base in a matter of hours.

It is. And the only reason no one calls him on it is because he’s a captain and he’s a member of Rogue One. That’s all he’s got going for him at this point.

Jyn, thankfully, doesn’t mention it to him, so he can assume no one’s told her about it.

If that had been the end of it, it would’ve been fine. But it wasn’t. Officials and Council members find the need to question her abilities, her skills, her loyalties, and every time they did, _every time,_ Cassian defends her. He has to, because no one else will. She’s lost both her parents, the man who raised her, and nearly her _life_ so many times for the sake of the Rebellion. She didn’t deserve to have that called into question so much and so pointedly, like they didn’t expect anything else from her.

And the _assumptions_ didn’t stop either.

“Andor,” says Draven crisply after one briefing, “why am I getting reports that you are, and I quote, ‘acting like a Wookie with a thorn in its arse’ end quote?”

Cassian resists the urge to grind his teeth. He’s been doing that a lot lately. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

Draven gives him a very unimpressed look. “Then let me spell it out for you. Are you getting into fights over Jyn Erso?”

Cassian doesn’t blink. The muscles in his jaw don’t work like grinding gears. The only indication he’s registered the question is a sudden tightening around the eyes and the slightest flex of his fingers. “Erso is more than capable of defending herself, sir.”

Draven’s eyes narrow. “Then why am I getting these reports, Andor?”

“I really couldn’t say, sir,” Cassian replies woodenly and Draven glares at him.

“You might be the leader of Rogue One, but you’re a intelligence officer of the Rebellion _first,_ ” he says pointedly. “And we have bigger things to worry about than defending whatever honor Erso might have.”

Never in his life has Cassian wanted to hit a senior officer that badly. “Undoubtedly sir,” he agrees without changing his expression and adds in the privacy of his own head, _for_ you _maybe._

This whole unfortunate thing comes to a head when Cassian sees the lieutenant who started all the trouble to begin with talking to Jyn.

It’s cold and there’s not much to do on Echo Base, and there’s a small but interested gaggle of pilots (including Bodhi, he notes) watching this interaction go down. Jyn is wrapped in layers, her blue-gray scarf wound around her head, framing her face like a halo (a ridiculous, sentimental thought but he can’t get rid of it once he thinks it), and she looks slightly puzzled at the point of this conversation. Cassian’s too far away to hear what’s being said, but her hand isn’t inching towards her truncheon so maybe he doesn’t have to interfere just yet.

He gets close enough to catch something that sounds like “Andor” and “tried” and _then_ he quite distinctly hears, “so how much for a night?” which is grounds right there for a _court martial_ at the very least—

Jyn blinks once and then smiles, slow, slow, slow, a bearing of teeth and Cassian thinks resignedly, _well this is going to end badly._

Her hand grasps her truncheon at the same time Cassian reaches them and it’s only by the fact that she takes a step back to get a good distance for the proper swing that he gets in the first punch.

There’s a lot of appreciative whooping and cheering at this (the lieutenant must not be that popular) and when Cassian and Jyn both turn to glare at their audience, they immediately decide that there must be much more important things they need to be doing, _elsewhere._ They scatter, taking Bodhi with them and Cassian could _swear_ he hears the sound of credits being exchanged (he is court martialing _someone_ at the end of this day, just to settle his nerves).

Jyn casts him a somewhat irritated look, despite the presence of the groaning lieutenant. “What do you want to do with this one?”

“Forget it, man,” the lieutenant grouses, clutching at his bleeding nose, “she can’t be worth all this trouble.”

Cassian leans forward, a polite, friendly smile on his face, the same one he uses when he’s lying through his teeth to an Imperial officer with a blaster hidden in his hand. “How would you like to find out what the utmost edge of the Outer Rim is like? With no survival gear?”

Jyn leans forward over Cassian’s shoulder and adds helpfully, “I’ve done it before. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“You’re _both_ kriffing crazy,” the lieutenant says, as he backs up from the two of them, “you two _deserve_ each other.”

He flees and Cassian looks at Jyn, who casually puts her truncheon back in its holster and gives him a bit of an exasperated look. “I _had_ him,” she sniffs. “Did you _have_ to punch him?”

“They can’t send _me_ to the Outer Rim,” Cassian says with a great deal more confidence than he actually feels. “And I thought I made it clear _you_ can’t go there either.”

Jyn’s mouth tightens for whatever reason. “Because you can’t manage without me.”

The cold is leaching into Cassian’s heavy parka, fur hood notwithstanding, and he thinks, _no I couldn’t, no I can’t, I reach for you like I would for a light in the dark—_

“I would rather not find out,” is what he allows himself to say and she _huffs,_ the sound purely irritated.

“Is this your idea of flirting?” she snaps. “Because for the Rebellion’s best spy, you’re _awful_ at it.”

The whole space seems to go a bit sideways and his self-control with it. “That’s because I’m _not flirting_ ,” he says through his teeth, mortified beyond measure. “Can we please have this discussion _somewhere else?_ ”

Jyn gives him an incredulous look and then seizes the front of his jacket and _drags_ him back to his officer’s room that only has its own fresher to speak for itself. Other than that, it’s bare save for a bed, a table and his bags all neatly under the bed, ready to grab at a moment’s notice.

Jyn slams his door shut and spins to face him, hands still fisted in his jacket, murder in her eyes. For someone whose head barely reaches the top of his shoulder, she’s truly good at looking terrifying. “What do you _want_ Cassian?”

“You want to me to answer this _now_?” he demands, furious and dizzy with the nearness of her, the last time they were so close was on the beaches of Scarif, waiting for death. “Right this instant?”

Her teeth gleam like a newly sharpened knife in the semi-dimness of the room. “When _would_ be a better time to talk about it? When the war is over? When you’re not an intelligence officer anymore? When I don’t get other idiots asking me how much you _paid_ for a night with me?”

“Who has been saying—” he starts to say, outraged, but she hits his chest angrily.

“If you’re not going to _do_ something about it,” she spits out, “why the _hell_ does it matter to you?”

“It doesn’t,” he says, furious with himself, with her, with the Rebellion, with the whole entire godsdamned universe, “It _shouldn’t._ But here we are.”

“Where,” she hisses, “is here?”

It’s a fair question in all honesty, and suddenly, Cassian has reached his limit for talking.

He grips her waist and pulls her up off the ground, making up for the seven inches of height between them. She’s either going to beat or shoot him for trying it, but he wants to go knowing what the sharp, full, sweet curve of her mouth feels like on his.

It’s a frantic, desperate thing and Jyn kisses like she fights; she takes no prisoners and gives no quarter and it’s all he wants. To fall and not be afraid of the drop. They end up with him backing her into the nearest wall, hitching her up higher, her arms around his neck and hands in his hair, a sharp bite to his lower lip. He hisses against her mouth and she softens it with her own lips, pushing against him like the tide.

He feels slightly drunk and more than a little dizzy when they finally have to break apart for air, and he rests his head in the crook of her neck, her scarf knocked askew by their urgency.

“Now see,” she gets out, breathing hard herself, “you could’ve done that a lot earlier and spared us both a lot of trouble.”

“How _much_ earlier?” he croaks out and he feels a tremor of amusement snake through her skin.

“About a month,” she allows and gets the hand in his air tugs gently but firmly back, his face to meet hers. “Next time some idiot approaches me, I get the first hit,” she says firmly. “Then you can do whatever you like with them.”

“I’m going to have to renegotiate this later,” he threatens half-heartedly and she _laughs_ , the sound purely amused and delighted.  

“Do your worst, captain,” she says, sparks in her eyes, “I’m more than ready for you.”

And she is.

The fights over Jyn Erso and her honor cease after that. Mostly because not a single Rogue Squadron pilot will hear a word against her, and also because Captain Cassian Andor is by her side more often than not, and no one with a grain of sense says anything about it in his hearing.   


End file.
